


Romance Is Dead

by scarredsodeep



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Anniversary, Canon Compliant, Cheesy, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Feelings, Fluff, Grumptrick, Humor, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Pete Is Too Much, Romance, Tales from 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 21:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10953468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarredsodeep/pseuds/scarredsodeep
Summary: It's Pete and Patrick's one-year anniversary, and Pete is determined to sweep his grumpy, unromantic boyfriend off his feet. How hard could it possibly be?Counting it for my Bandom Bingo 2017 free space, even though I was totally gonna write this either way. <3





	Romance Is Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Today is an important day. It is my Peterick anniversary in every way that counts, and I wrote this as a gift to everyone in this fandom who has welcomed me, read me, befriended me, or otherwise made me feel at home. I wrote it for me, too: pure cheese fluff (what a sandwich you could make with that) to celebrate.
> 
> I have been writing Fall Out Boy fanfiction _continuously and without breaks_ , churning out one consecutive fic after another, nonstop since May 20, 2016. In the last 365 days, I have published 180k words in this fandom, and written several thousand you haven’t seen yet. I have finished 13 stories. I’m proud as hell.
> 
> May has always been an important month for me and Peterick. The first Peterick story I ever wrote was written in May of 2010, when I didn’t even know Andy and Joe’s names, and wrote Boycott Love as a birthday gift for the beautiful internet hobo who got me into this fandom in the first place. (She used to send me Peterick fics to read while I was in traction therapy. Nothing distracts you from pain like Peterick sex pollen, and that’s a fact.) 
> 
> During May 2010 I also wrote Learning Curve, my first step into the Pete Wentz POV that would eventually suck me in like a whirlpool and slowly but meaningfully change who I am, not just as a writer but as a person. Loving Pete Wentz, thinking about Pete Wentz, has changed my life. I try to be more like him every day. Candid and not embarrassed about being ridiculous, never apologizing for whatever garbage I love, honest and genuine and the person that I am, whether or not people like it. Kind and giving of my heart, driven by desire to connect with other people. Acknowledging all the ways that being broken makes us stronger. Vulnerable and not afraid of that. _We worship love._
> 
> Shit got realer in May 2015, when I wrote Jet Black Crow, my favorite thing I’ve ever written and my first significant entry into this fandom. Then, in May 2016, I got on a plane to fly away from my soulmate, and in between all the crying, I listened to Pax AM on loop and brazenly wrote pizza delivery Peterick smut, daring the dude in the seat next to me to say something about it. (Writing smut on planes remains one of my favorite activities.) And that was what kicked this off. Ever since I boarded that flight, I've been writing Peterick like Alexander Hamilton, like I'm running out of time. I am writing two stories _as we speak_. I don't plan on stopping.
> 
> Those Mays paved my way to this one. I am proud of myself, yeah, but mostly I am so glad to have met all of you, to be on this journey. Many of you were on the sexy, sweaty breakneck Stranger Danger train with me last summer; I’ve met some of you through tumblr posts and followed you back to AO3; I’ve exchanged phone numbers and snapchats and novel-length emails with others. Some of you have made art for me; some have made playlists; one has even made me a Bingo card and a Pete Wentz countdown calendar to help me limp to the end of my terrible job. Fuck, I love you guys. In the last 365 days, I have almost written you the Goblet of Fire; I have outwritten any single volume of Tolkien. I have written a Dickens novel of Peterick in this year alone, and I have found a home.
> 
> This fic about Pete trying to show Patrick what he means to him—it’s really about me, trying to show it to you. What an amazing year it has been, friends and readers. Thank you for everything.
> 
>  
> 
> [Musical accompaniment.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wY71zqHfHKI)

This is harder than Pete thought it was going to be, and not in the fun way like when he convinced Patrick to take Viagra.

Here is the problem:

Pete knows how lucky he is. Knows it, can’t believe it, wakes up in the middle of the night to check that Patrick’s still beside him and smiles himself back to sleep. Is fucking delirious with it. Every day he’s living a better life than he ever dreamed of. Fuck, he never thought he’d live past thirty. Now he’s 37—ten years past the year musicians are supposed to die; his band has made an impossible comeback and is producing music more independent, more challenging, than ever; and he wakes up next to Patrick Stump every morning. _Fuck_ , Pete knows he’s lucky.

So the problem is this:

He wants to something for Patrick that expresses that. _All_ of that. One year: one year of happiness, the kind he thought was made-for-TV bullshit for most of his life. One year of fucking indomitable love. _You and me, we’re the difference between real love and the love on TV, the difference between a parlor trick and true blue magic._ He never thought he’d get the chance to live the difference. He’s been throwing what Patrick means to him into poems, epic love songs, into Patrick’s own mouth for years, now. So words won’t cut it. Words are so much white noise, at this point, from him: he’s told Patrick he loves him every day since they met, or near enough. Words! This time, they aren’t gonna sweep Patrick off his feet.

He’s grateful, too, so there has to an element of thanks to it. He’s full of gratitude for everything that Patrick was able to forgive, for how much Patrick was willing to risk, for what Patrick freely sacrificed for them to finally be together in a way that could stick: caution, privacy, a loving relationship with a lovely woman. They both had to be so _brave_ , and more than a little stupid, to really give this a try.

And oh, have they ever been rewarded.

So Pete needs to figure out how to say all of that in one grand, pitch-perfect romantic gesture. _I love you you’re perfect it feels like you invented me thank you for letting me love you like this I can’t believe we waited so long but from now on I’ll keep you forever you make me so happy I think god will have to kill me twice._ Pete’s usually good at romance. He’s skated by for years on writing clever love songs, and filled in the gaps by driving through the night to get back home or shouting his love off hotel rooftops or, once, faking chest pain to get an X-ray so he could give his paramour a picture of his heart.

The _real_ problem is Patrick. Patrick is not like anyone who’s come before. It’s not just that he’s special: he’s also unreceptive to big, emotive fusses, and notably cranky. Patrick has been Pete’s best friend for 15 fucking years, Pete’s boyfriend for officially 365 days, his soulmate since time began and possibly even longer. And Pete can’t think of a single goddamn thing that will sweep Patrick off his feet, say all the things that Pete is trying to say.

Honestly he’s starting to feel like a terrible boyfriend. He’s made and cancelled 10 different dinner reservations, booked and then backed out of three separate spontaneous vacations, bought and returned more than one of Elvis Costello’s personal belongings and a truly absurd array of other gifts Patrick would be disinterested in and possibly even disturbed by. This should come naturally, like the rest of their relationship. He should be _good_ at this. He should be good at loving Patrick. He’s been doing it for nearly half his life.

He _should_ be. He’s not.

This is so much harder than he thought.

*

Nothing says ‘I love you’ like waffles. Pete hopes. Homemade chocolate waffles, served with strawberries, whipped cream, and a giant mug of coffee, steaming and sticky with syrup on a breakfast tray, adorned with a foxglove in a little vase (nothing says ‘love’ like poison flowers), and served in bed. That’s romantic. Right? A steady diet of movies and TV has led Pete to believe the answer to this question is an emphatic _yes_.

But Patrick. Oh. Patrick may look like an angel while he’s sleeping, but he does not wake graceful.

“Rise and shine, love of my life!” Pete trills. He stands over Patrick with his tray, Guns’ n’ Roses shirt dusted with flour, grinning.

“Go ‘way,” Patrick grumbles, rolling over.

Pete balances the tray on the nightstand. Getting coffee into this man is first priority. Pete plunks himself onto the bed, taking care to jostle the hell out of Patrick. “M’sleeping,” Patrick groans into his pillow.

There’s nothing for it but to shake him. Vigorously. He’s got to wake up and receive Pete’s affection, or it’s going to get cold. “ _Good morning it’s morning get out of bed_ ,” Pete sing-songs. “Wake up and consume my love!”

Patrick is coaxed into an upright position. Looking grumpy and far from awake, he accepts the tray. He scowls at it. “What’s this for?”

“The first of the day’s many romantic gestures.” Has Patrick been blissfully unaware the whole time Pete’s been stressing about this anniversary thing? For a terrible lurching moment Pete worries he got the date wrong. But no—he remembers it specifically. It was just after Patrick’s birthday, in the early-morning aftermath of a party Pete had insisted on throwing him… The music had stopped, the guests gone home, but the fete was only beginning.

Patrick takes a long pull on his jumbo mug of coffee. He instantly looks more lifelike. Pre-coffee, Patrick could pass as his _Irresistible_ mask.

“Do you have to sit so close?” Grumptrick asks. It’s true that Pete is all pressed up against him, restricting the use of his limbs. Patrick has a much lower snuggling drive than Pete does. Pete scoots til Patrick stops scowling.

Patrick tries the waffle, tips his head back in pleasure. Breakfast food is his primary weakness. “I can taste the pre-diabetes,” he says appreciatively. “So really. Why’d you do all this?”

That’s when Pete realizes that Patrick has no idea it’s their anniversary. A grin spreads slow as syrup across Pete’s face. Oh, it’s going to be a fun day. Patrick’s guard is down; he will be extra-vulnerable to sweeping saccharine gestures.

“The waffles are your prize for putting up with this guy for a full year,” Pete says. “It’s our _anniversary_ , Patrick. Our very first one.”

“Does that mean you’re going to be trying this hard all day?” Patrick asks. Pete does not appreciate the apprehension in his tone.

“Oh yeah. I’m gonna sweep you off your feet. It is my every intention to see you swoon, Patrick Scrumptious.”

“What if, instead of whatever astronomical fuss you have in mind, we just—” Patrick leans over, kisses Pete with sugar-sticky lips. He raises an eyebrow invitingly. Pete moves closer in a hurry, seeking that sweetness. His movement upsets the syrup carafe, causing a catastrophic spill directly into Patrick’s lap.

“Well,” says Pete over Patrick’s burst of cursing. “We’d better get you out of these pants.”

*

After several rigorous scientific trials, Pete concludes that syrup and oral sex made an excellent combination.

The waffles are quite cold by the time they get back to them.

Now, Patrick drips on the bathmat, wrapped in a towel. “You’re fucking kidding,” he says.

This is not the reaction Pete was hoping for. While Patrick showered off the mess of syrup and sex, Pete put on his red carpet best, bow tie and all. He offers Patrick a bouquet of lurid orchids so vibrant as to approach the obscene.

“You don’t seem very swept off your feet,” Pete observes as Patrick continues to not take the flowers.

“Uh, thank you? They’re pretty, you’re pretty, what the fuck do you want me to do with orchids right now? Give them a shower?” Patrick looks exasperated. “The waffles were great, the good morning sex was great, you are obviously a wonderful human and boyfriend. But I think you’re getting your hopes up for something I’m not gonna be able to deliver. Just—I’m not that much of a romantic, Pete.”

“What I’m hearing is: I have not yet discovered the appropriate way to romance you.” Pete _is_ a little disappointed, he’ll admit. He’s a little excited, too. As a person, he’s got a lot of energy. Like, too much energy. He likes a challenge.

“What? No. Pete—”

“Not to worry, Trickster! I’ve got a whole day planned. I’ll make you swoon yet. Now, for this next part, don your adventuring gear and some sturdy walking shoes.” Pete bounds off to prepare the next phase of Operation: Anniversary.

He barely takes note of Patrick protesting behind him, “There’s really no need for a big fuss!”

*

Patrick quits the relationship-themed scavenger hunt after the third clue, when he fishes the next envelope out of a copy of _Grave_ at their favorite Reckless Records and realizes it’s sending him halfway across the city to the former location of Angels and Kings, one of the first places they ever—adventured below the belt.

He calls Pete, who is at home strewing rose petals around and overseeing the sommelier set up their lunchtime wine and cheese tasting.

“Pete. Why am I doing this?” Patrick starts the call.

“Did you find the clue at Glenbrook South yet? Remember how I used to pick up you for lunch a million years ago?”

“ _Glenbrook_? I am not fucking going to _Glenbrook_ , Pete. Isn’t the point of an anniversary, like—to spend the day together?”

“I thought you’d be faster with the clues,” says Pete, a little defensively.

“They are _incredibly_ obscure,” complains Patrick. “And your handwriting is terrible. And did you even factor in commute time?”

Pete pauses to consider. In fact he did not. “Okay, maybe I went overboard with the scavenger hunt,” he admits. “Give me 10 minutes to finish lighting candles and you can come home.”

“Ten minutes’ worth of candles? You know our apartment is not, like, the fucking Notre Dame cathedral, right?”

“I’ve spent so many years with you in my life that I experience annoyance as affection,” Pete says blithely. “So everything you’re saying just sounds like ‘I love you Pete, light more candles.’”

“What can I say that you’ll hear as ‘let’s just eat pizza and watch Jurassic Park tonight’?”

“What’s that, Patrick? You want me to hire a private jet and fly you to Milan?”

“Just don’t burn down our home before I get there. I at least should get to burn to death after all of this,” Patrick groans before he hangs up the phone. Grinning to himself, Pete goes back to lighting candles.

*

The playlist of Pete’s favorite love songs (prominently featuring Dramarama’s _Anything, Anything_ , an instant and all-time classic that he knows Patrick would appreciate if he’d just give it a try) and the guided wine and cheese pairings and, yes, even the candlelight seem to loosen Patrick up. He’s smiling and laughing in addition to fidgeting uncomfortably, at least. It’s progress. It’s romance. It’s fun. The constant barrage of complaints (“you’re lucky I’m not the fucking fire marshal, this is the Great Chicago Fire Strikes Back waiting to happen!”) has ceased.

It’s not enough.

Pete wants—he wants it to be like the end of Sleepless in Seattle, or The fucking Notebook, or Eternal Sunshine. He wants it to be like the battle to close the dimensional rift at the end of Pacific Rim. He wants it to be—momentous. A whole year, when no one thought they’d last a day, themselves included. He needs today to make an impact.

He wants Patrick to really _feel_ , in his bones, blood, and marrow, the magnitude of Pete’s affection. He wants the people in the audience to think about the beauty and salvation and inexorability of love and dab their eyes. He just feels so _much_. He always feels so much. Patrick has saved him in every way a person can be saved, and—it’s just really important to Pete that he get this right. He wants to pulverize Patrick’s heart. He loves him so much, he just wants to smash him.

Only—none of his grand gestures are working. He’s feeling increasingly frantic, more inadequate with each passing minute. Does he even know Patrick at all? Because after 15 years of friendship and exactly 365 days of the happiest, healthiest, most loving relationship of Pete’s life—he should fucking know what Patrick likes.

Pete’s angst at this point is probably, like, so large it’s being photographed by the Hubble telescope, because Patrick slips his arm through Pete’s, snuggles his head onto Pete’s shoulder, and says happily, “I’ve officially been seduced. You can change back into sweatpants and a Metallica shirt now, and then I’ll take them off you again and we can have mind-blowing sex.”

“You got socks on?”

“Uh—yes?”

“Then I clearly haven’t knocked them off yet. The anniversary continues,” Pete says grimly.

Patrick lets out a goofy laugh. “What else would you possibly have planned? A life-size chocolate sculpture of me? An oil portrait? Are you going to give me an expensive watch like I’ve been your employee for ten years?”

Pete makes a mental note to ditch the Mont Blanc.

“Sometimes I just want to punch a dude’s shoulder in a manly fashion and call it a day, you know?”

“So you’re saying romance is dead.”

“I shot it in the chest and in the head,” Patrick agrees, finishing the lyric. “I really wasn’t expecting all—this. If you’d given me a vial of your own blood or, like, your kidney packed in dry ice, maybe—but orchids and bow ties? This feels more like a season finale of The Bachelor than a day in the life of Pete Wentz. You’re _weird_ , Pete, and sometimes terrifying. I love that about you.”

It would have been considerably less trouble to just give Patrick a vial of his blood. He even knows an anticoagulant guy. Pete had no idea that was even an option. He was trying to go for more ‘high romance’ and less ‘serial killer,’ though he’s not always great at finding the line between the two.

It’s gonna be awkward when the sushi chef and the pâtissier get here, if that’s how Patrick feels.

*

 “So you probably aren’t gonna go for the relationship slideshow or the collage celebrating our friendship or the tandem bike ride along the lakeshore,” Pete hazards, “but what about presents? Everybody likes presents.”

Patrick looks up from his laptop and tugs his headphones off one ear. He wears them upside down, under his chin, so as not to interfere with his baseball cap. Pete fucking adores this man.

Patrick is understandably apprehensive. Pete has discreetly cancelled the champagne fountain and violinist he’d hired for the evening, but a Michelin-rated sushi chef is still scheduled to come to their home and stuff them with tempura and eel sauce in a few hours.

Patrick is, in his words, ‘recovering from the barrage of affection’ before the next volley begins. Pete is being respectful of Patrick’s space. He’s trying, anyway. He even changed into a t-shirt to make Patrick more comfortable. (He put his suit jacket back on over it. It’s still a fucking _occasion_.)

“I do like presents,” Patrick agrees cautiously. “Okay. I kind of have something for you too. It’s not—um—fancy, so don’t get excited. I didn’t know we were going fancy.”

Pete grins explosively. His hopes are instantly sky-fucking-high. He invades Patrick’s personal space just a _little_ to kiss his nose, knocking his forehead on the brim of Patrick’s cap. Dating Patrick means reinventing your whole kissing technique to accommodate various types of hats. “You acted like you didn’t even know it was our anniversary,” he says.

“Well, I didn’t know it was _this_ kind of anniversary. You’re always upstaging me, Wentz. Next year I’ll hire a fucking skywriter or, like, spell out ILU in hot air balloons with emojis on them.”

“Thank you for recognizing the appropriate degree of ceremony,” Pete says somberly.

Pete starts with the gift he’s sure Patrick will like, holds in reserve the sappier, more vulnerable one. He does trip over a candle on his way to fetch the box. It’s probably a good thing Patrick made him extinguish 90% of the flames.

The shape of a hat box leaves little to the imagination. Patrick lets out an excited little gasp—the first time today Pete’s really felt he’s gotten something _right_ —and tears through the tissue paper. He lifts a deep burgundy, handcrafted Goorin Brothers fedora out of the wrapping like it’s a holy object. Headphones and ball cap are cast aside so he can lower the new hat reverently onto his head. It has a porkpie brim, a black leather band, and a brass button with a phoenix stamped on it.

“Ohhhh, it’s beautiful!” Patrick croons, planting himself in front of the hall mirror to study it up close and from all angles. “I haven’t seen this one before—you didn’t get it custom made?”

“Better,” says Pete, coming up behind Patrick to wrap his arms around the other man’s waist, nestle his head on Patrick’s shoulder. He loves the way they look together, can never quite believe his luck when he catches their paired reflection. Dark and light, shadow and cream; amber and aquamarine. The burgundy brings out the flush in Patrick’s cheeks, the blood-filled stain of his preternaturally lovely lips. It suits him even better than Pete imagined.

“You’re in that shop every other day, there was only one way I could surprise you. This is a prototype of the Patrick Stump, their newest style. It’ll be in all their shops by fall.”

Patrick’s mouth flops open. He turns in Pete’s arms like he needs to check his disbelief against Pete’s actual eyes, not just their reflection. “You got them to make a whole _hat_ after me,” he says. “Mother _fucker_ , of course you did. You do everything to eleven, you know that? Okay, fair warning, after this my present is really going to be underwhelming.”

Pete squeezes Patrick’s waist, tips his head to the side, lets his eyelids get heavy—generally tries to look irresistible. “Could you stop competing with me for one second and kiss me?”

Patrick brings his laughing mouth to Pete’s come-hither smile. The kiss is slow and sweet. Finally, he’s discovered Patrick’s love language, Pete thinks. Of course it’s hats. Then Patrick’s tongue, hot and urgent and perfectly distracting, parts his lips, and that’s it for thinking.

*

Later, Pete is sprawled out happily in the bed he still can’t believe he gets to call ‘theirs,’ relieved of his formal wear at last. Patrick stands before him naked save for an acoustic guitar and his new hat, which honestly is better than any outcome of this gift than Pete could have imagined. Pete feels tender and raw all over, like their earliest days, when they were two kids in a van who couldn’t get enough of each other, who could spend entire days lost in sex and skin and summer sweat and had no notion of how to be what the other needed.

God, Pete never thought they’d make it here from there. He thought they were fireworks, gone off too soon. By the time they each grew up and really learned how to be good for the band and each other, he was convinced he’d been no more than Patrick’s lusty teenage fuck—an experiment, a _body_ really, with a sometimes inconvenient best friend attached. He thought that the honor of being trusted with Patrick’s trembling adolescent exploration was the greatest gift he’d ever receive. He never even dreamed that Patrick would, could ever _fall in love_ with him.

That’s what he’s really celebrating today. Somehow, in spite of years of missed chances, they still managed to find their way—

Here.

“This is the best place I’ve ever been in my life,” he announces dreamily to Patrick. Patrick’s cute with the guitar and all, but what Pete _really_ wants is for him to get all that unguarded naked skin back into this bed, so Pete can feel and touch and claim every last inch of it. “Come be in it with me.”

“Hush,” Patrick says. “This is the five minutes this whole year I’m going to pretend to be romantic, and it’s for your benefit, so shut up and listen.”

Glaring to ward off any temptation to respond Pete might feel, Patrick begins to play. Looking right at Pete with all the force and charisma he usually unleashes on full amphitheaters, Patrick sings, “Oh my baby, baby, I love you more than I can tell. I don’t think I can live without you and I know that I never will. Oh baby, baby, I want you so it scares me to death…”

Elvis Costello has never sounded so good.

*

They’re still in bed when the sushi chef gets there.

Patrick lifts his mouth off Pete’s collarbone to make a sound of exasperation. “Are you serious with all of this? Let’s just stay in bed and order take-out.”

The door buzzes again. “Behold the miracle of GrubHub: I can order sushi with one hand and keep doing _this_ with the other,” says Patrick. It is—very convincing.

Pete would prefer to focus on what Patrick’s fingers are doing to his nipples, really he would. “That’s BK Park,” Pete groans at the ceiling. “Five-star sushi chef of your favorite Japanese restaurant in Chicago. We can’t leave him on the doorstep.”

“We really, really can,” Patrick says, punctuating his point with a rough bite at the tendon between Pete’s shoulder and neck. One of Pete’s favorite things in this world and any other is when Patrick sucks this spot until it bruises beneath the skin. God, Patrick is skilled at commanding Pete’s blood. He can coax it to fill anything, anything.

“Why are you fighting this so hard? Look, you stay right here, just let me buzz BK in. Under no circumstances should you put on clothes.”

Patrick rolls off of Pete with an exaggerated huff. “I refuse to learn any facts about sushi!” he declares. Pete wraps himself in Patrick’s short bathrobe and decides that’s dressed enough. “That maître fromager guy ruined cheese for me forever. I did _not_ need to know the saltiness of that asiago came from shed bits of cow stomach lining, and furthermore...”

Patrick’s complaints trail Pete down the hall.

*

Pete gets BK set up rather sheepishly, given that he’s not even pretending to wear pants. “Um, Patrick decided he’s not interested in anything—educational,” Pete explains. “I don’t want to treat you like a Panda Express or anything, but—”

BK holds up a hand. “Say no more. I’ll call you when the first batch of rolls is ready. I am perfectly happy not to put on a show while I work.”

When Pete returns to the bedroom, the worst has happened: Patrick has put on pants.

“Hey!” Pete protests.

“You wanted _sushi_ ,” Patrick reminds him darkly. Then he stops, bites his lip, and stares at the t-shirt he’s twisting in his hands instead of putting on. “Umm, actually? What you asked just a minute ago. Why I’m—resisting all this over-the-top romantic shit. Can we talk about that?”

Pete sits down on the edge of the bed carefully. He tries very, very hard not to assume the worst.  He’s sure of Patrick, sure like he’s never been of anyone; but sometimes he’s too much, and Patrick’s been trying to tell him that all day, but he’s been so hyperfocused on having a perfect anniversary that he’s not _listening_ —

Patrick sits on the chest at the foot of the bed, out of reach. Pete’s heart panics harder. “You have been so ridiculously thoughtful today,” starts Patrick. “I especially love how you keep bringing things to me, instead of making me go out and be, like, a spectacle.”

“You hate celebrating in public,” says Pete.

“You know I’m not this guy, right? Flowers and chocolates and—and Pablo Neruda love sonnets?  Because I don’t want to disappoint you. Just, like—I don’t really _swoon_. I am not a swooner. Excitement just feels like anxiety to me, like, most of the time. Too much cuddling annoys me. I’m not, like—sentimental. Or not in this way, I mean.”

“I know all that,” Pete tries to assure him.

“I just—you know what I’ve been worried about all day?” Patrick makes eye contact sharply, suddenly. “That you’re—gonna find me out somehow. Discover the real, grouchy, no-nonsense, impatient _me_ , and—and you aren’t gonna want to share your life with that guy.”

Pete waits a beat, just to make sure the next thing out of Patrick’s mouth isn’t ‘and so I must break up with you.’ When the silence settles, Pete reaches out, holds his hand in the space between them til Patrick meets him halfway.

“Just to clarify: you’re worried I’m going to find out that you’re grumpy?”

Patrick laughs, just a little. “Well—yeah.”

“I’m pretty sure you were _born_ a crabby old man, Patrick. Your first words were probably ‘stop fucking looking at me.’ I don’t love you in spite of that, I fell in love with _for_ it. For that and everything else about you, from your forehead freckle to your terrible music taste. Okay?”

Patrick visibly relaxes. “Yeah. Okay. And you’re the one with terrible music taste,” he adds. “Not even starting on your taste in clothes—”

Pete pulls Patrick backwards onto the bed and leaps on him, swatting at, poking, and tickling him until he’s laughing too hard to get any more sass out of his mouth.

Prone, undefended, Patrick is breathing hard as he looks up at Pete. “One more worry,” he says.

“Shoot.”

“You’re not, like, gonna end this night by asking me to marry you, right?”

Pete is, for once, completely taken aback. “What? No. I mean, should I? Do you want me to?”

“I do not,” Patrick says. “You’ve been upstaging me all day. I will be actually pissed if you steal a proposal too. Like, if I even _wanted_ to do something romantic for you, there’d be nowhere to even start—you’ve taken it all!”

“You’re saying that if I do ever propose to you, it should be, like, at a landfill, while we’re standing in trash.”

“While homophobic garbagemen jeer at us and shout really cutting insults about our discography, yes. That would be perfect.”

“I do have just one more present,” Pete confesses.

Patrick looks truly outraged. “I fucking knew it! _J’accuse_!”

Laughing, Pete rolls off of his ridiculous best friend and retrieves it from his bedside table. “It’s not a ring made out of upcycled banana peel, but—the first one is supposed to be the paper anniversary, and I know that’s for marriage and we’re not married, but after how much of our lives we’ve spent together I actually _feel_ pretty much married to you, or at least like, incredibly fucking committed in a way I don’t think we need labels for—”

“Spit it out, Wentz,” Patrick prompts, eyebrows high in skeptical arches.

Pete thrusts a sheet of 8.5x11 paper at Patrick. “So here’s your paper gift,” he says.

Patrick looks down at the bright artwork, taking it in. Pete feels unaccountably awkward. This is his most vulnerable moment of the whole day. This one’s not for show. This one is real, actual, terrifying romance. “Um, it’s you, as Batman? Because you did the theme for the Lego movie? I got Bronx to draw it for you. He’s really getting good, I think, for a little dude. Um, I’m sorry if it’s dumb—”

Patrick throws his arms around Pete’s neck, but not before Pete sees the shine of tears in his eyes.

“Of course it’s fucking perfect,” Patrick says hoarsely. “Thank you. Fuck, I’m in love with you, Peter.”

Finally, Pete knows he got it right. He hugs Patrick back, goes ahead and decides to count this as a swoon. 


End file.
